Brett Ponton
Analyst · Jefferies. Go ahead please
Thank you Maureen, and good morning everyone. Thanks for joining us today. I am pleased to kick off our new fiscal year with our sixth consecutive quarter of comparable store sales growth. Our ability to deliver sustainable growth despite more difficult comparisons and unfavorable weather conditions in certain regions reflects our focus on driving operational excellence and consistent execution across our organization. In line with our plans, we continue to make significant progress towards the execution of our Monroe forward strategy, which positions us well to capitalize on the continued momentum in our business. Before diving into our first quarter performance, I would like to thank our teammates whose outstanding work and commitment remain key to our success as we continue to scale our platform for growth. As illustrated on Slide 3, we began fiscal 2020 with solid top line growth, achieving a comparable store sales increase of 0.8% which marked our second consecutive quarter of positive comps on top of positive comps in the prior year period when adjusted for days. This has happened for the first time since the third quarter of fiscal 2011. In line with what we discussed on our last earnings call, we saw accelerated comp sales performance in April as we entered the spring service selling season, but experienced temporary softness in May and to a lesser extent June mainly due to cold and wet spring weather in certain regions. We are encouraged that comparable store sales recovered towards the end of the quarter despite facing tougher year-over-year comparisons and we are pleased to report that we have seen continued improvement into July with comparable store sales up approximately 1% month-to-date. Our positive first quarter comparable store sales performance was driven by higher average ticket, reflecting strong in-store execution as well as sustained momentum in our brake and tire categories, as we continue to capitalize on the optimization of our brake and tire offerings. In addition, we opportunistically shifted sales volume to our non-comp free service wholesale locations in the mid-Atlantic region this quarter, in order to optimize routes, drive cash flow and margin improvement as well as enhance our capacity to serve new customers at our nearby comp store locations. This created a temporary comp sales headwind in the first quarter. Adjusting for this temporary negative impact, our comparable store sales growth would have been approximately 100 basis points higher, or up 1.8% for the first quarter. Importantly, our robust two years stack comparable store sales performance reflects the continued traction of our strategic initiatives and gives us confidence in our ability to deliver sustainable long term growth. Moving onto our performance by category in the first quarter, we experienced a 1% increase in tire comparable store sales, driven by a higher ticket and flat tire volume over year. Tires represent our largest category, and we are encouraged to see that the optimization of our tire assortment, which I'll discuss further in a moment is driving results as evidenced by our solid first quarter performance, and the sustained strength we are seeing in our tire category in the second quarter today. Turning to our service and repair categories, we continue to capitalize on the success of our brake offerings, which was our strongest performing category for the fifth consecutive quarter with an increase of 6% and comparable brake sales despite lapping more difficult comparisons following the launch of our optimized good, better, best, brake packages in the first quarter of last year. In our remaining categories, we saw a positive comparable store sales for alignments, while front end shops and maintenance declined year-over-year. Geographically, we saw strength in our northern markets, which outperformed our southern markets. Lastly, new stores added $19.6 million in revenue, including $16.6 million from recent acquisitions. Moving onto slide 4, acquisitions remain a core pillar of growth strategy as evidenced by the two acquisitions we completed in the first quarter and new acquisitions we announced today. As previously discussed, the acquisition of 40 certified tire and service center stores, and a one distribution center in California represent a major milestone in diversifying and strengthening our store footprint. The acquisition closed during the first quarter of fiscal 2020 and is expected to add approximately 45 million in annualized sales, representing a sales mix of 70% service and 30% tires, tend to be breakeven to diluted earnings per share in fiscal 2020. I am pleased to report that the rollout of our standardized in-store operating procedures and the implementation of Monro University, our cloud based learning management system have led to a very effective and efficient integration process. In addition, as part of our broader consolidation effort, we will be rebranding these stores under the tire choice out of service centers banner to optimize visibility and performance at these locations. Most importantly, we now have a solid platform and a proper corporate infrastructure for further expansion in this dynamic and attractive region. In this regard, we are pleased to announce that we completed the acquisition of two additional stores in California during the first quarter, which are expected to add approximately $3 million in annualized sales further solidifying our strong foundation on the West Coast. Similarly, we continue to diversify our store footprint in southern markets and completed the previously announced acquisition of closed stores in Louisiana and other new state for Monroe early in the first quarter. These locations are expected to add approximately $15 million in annualized sales representing a sales mix of 35% service and 65% tires. We also announced this morning that we have signed definitive agreements to acquire eight locations filling in the recently entered market of Louisiana. These locations are expected to add approximately 12 million in annualized sales, representing a sales mix of 50% service and 50% tires. The acquisitions are expected to close during the second quarter and are expected to be break even to diluted earnings per share in fiscal 2020. Overall, acquisitions announced and completed in fiscal 2020 collectively represent an expected $75 million in annualized sales. Looking ahead, we are well-positioned to continue to execute on a robust pipeline of attractive M&A opportunities and currently have over 10 NDA signed with opportunities ranging from 5 to 40 stores. Lastly, we opened one Greenfield location during the first quarter in addition to the two California stores previously mentioned. Moving on to Slide 5, I would like to take a moment to discuss the tremendous progress we continue to make in executing our Monroe forward strategy. The implementation of our strategic initiatives is driving more consistent in-store execution, which has led to a sustained improvement in customer satisfaction and financial performance. Starting with our initiatives to improve the customer experience, our largest effort focuses on the reimagine imaging of our stores to create a more consistent appearance along with the implementation of standardized in-store operating procedures, which we call our Monroe Playbook. Following the successful reimaging and rollout of our Monroe Playbook at 31 pilot stores in Rochester New York last year, we are now in the process of scaling this initiative. We significantly advanced the refresh of 50 stores in our southern markets during the first quarter and expect to modernize the appearance of approximately 70 additional stores in three other markets in the second quarter. As part of our broader store refresh initiative, we have also identified an opportunity to optimize brand awareness and banner concentration in targeted markets. As mentioned last quarter, our goal is to consolidate our existing nine retail banners into regional power brands and convert service stores just tire stores, where when we identified targeted demographics that favour a tire store format. To this end, we rebranded selected pilot stores to a tire oriented brand in the district in mid-Atlantic region last year. Consistent with our plan to enhance local brand awareness, we will also consolidate our brands and banners as part of a 50-store refresh initiated in the first quarter. Overall, the results of the two pilot programs launched last year are tremendously positive. The outperformance of our pilot stores materialized into comparable store sales growth notably above our chain average in the first quarter of fiscal 2020, as well as a dramatic improvement across key guest satisfaction metrics at these stores. These compelling results reinforce our confidence in the execution of our store refresh and brand consolidation strategy going forward. Building upon this success, we will continue to leverage customer data analytics and local brand awareness to roll out our brand operational standards and increase our relevancy in the marketplace. As we modernize our store portfolio over the next three to five years, we will prioritize both our newly acquired stores and targeted markets where we see the strongest potential for increased visibility and traction of our tire banners in order to achieve the highest possible returns. Turning to Slide 6, our efforts to enhance customer satisfaction are reflected in our average 4.7 star rating during the first quarter, which brings our all-time average star rating to a new high of 4.6 stars as compared to 3.6 stars before we launched our customer satisfaction and online reputation program. We are proud of these results and continue to leverage customer feedback to drive operational improvement and deliver a consistent five star experience in each of our stores. This is further supported by our customer centric engagement initiatives. We're pleased with the progress of our new data analytics based CRM platform and our continuing to invest in data driven customer relationship marketing, and customer acquisition campaigns to meet our current and future customers where they are. Additionally, developing our online presence has been a critical component of our marketing strategy to enhance the level of engagement with our customers. We are pleased to report we have significantly increased our online visibility since the modernization of our retail Websites last year, as evidenced by our Website sessions and listening views doubling year-over-year. Improved content and functionalities also drove a notable increase in our consumer online actions, including, clicks-to-call, driving directions and appointment requests both year-over-year and sequentially. In order to ensure we are capitalizing on these improvements in our marketing and advocacy, we continue to invest in in-store technology in our introducing a new digital phone system which will be rolled out across our store base over the remainder of the fiscal year. Successfully executing on the phone is critical in driving customers to our stores and we are confident this new system will drive greater visibility and more consistent phone execution to better serve our customers. This is a major step to upgrade our network infrastructure and create a unified communication strategy, which we believe will support the ongoing rollout of our marketing initiatives and importantly lead to substantial improvements in the customer experience for years to come. Turning to our omni channel strategy. At the beginning of the first quarter, we announced the expansion of our collaboration with Amazon.com to provide tiering installation services to their customers at over 800 stores across 21 states representing approximately two thirds of our store footprint. We have been very pleased with the smooth rollout of this program launched a year ago and we are on track to expand this program to all road retail locations across 30 states. So building upon the strong foundation we are now preparing for the final phase of our omni channel build out in the second half of fiscal 2020, and look forward to offering our customers the options to view and purchase tires online and seamlessly schedule an appointment or in-store installation. Turning to our initiatives to optimize our product and service offerings, our strategy to provide customers with clearly defined options relevant to all consumer price points drove higher in-store conversion again this quarter, despite lapping the successful launch for a good, better, best merchandising strategy in the first quarter of last year, we continue to see a meaningful year-over-year increase in demand for brakes this quarter. In addition, we remain focused on optimizing our tire assortment to create the best value for our customers and further our goal of becoming the number one destination for tires at any price point. As previously mentioned, we introduced new Tier 2 branded tires last quarter rounding out our assortment mix, while optimizing branded tire margins. To complement our tire portfolio, our private label tires representing approximately 40% of our higher units remain a key competitive differentiator and allow us to provide our customers significant value at opening price point levels. Overall, the optimism of our product and service offering is one of our strategic priorities and we look for opportunities to continue to advance our category management and pricing capabilities going forward. Lastly, I would like to provide an update on our productivity and team engagement initiatives. The personal and professional development of our teammates is one of our key priorities to attract and retain talent. In fact, we view increased teammate engagement and higher satisfaction as key drivers to accelerate productivity throughout our organization. We are in the process of rolling out Monroe University; our cloud based learning management system across our store base. As part of the roll out, we are prioritizing our newly acquired stores to facilitate the onboarding of our new teammates and are pleased to report that the deployment of our Monroe University training platform has been a key tool for the integration of our California stores. Importantly, Monroe University significantly enhances our employer value proposition. The platform is not only designed to provide our 8700 teammates with best-in-class trainings to better serve our customers, but also help them grow and advance their career at Monroe. Our robust curriculum will also prepare them to handle future technician requirements as vehicles become more complex with the increased adoption of technology. Overall, our strong commitment to support our teammates career paths has improved job satisfaction and teammate engagement, which in turn has meaningful re-enhanced our ability to retain talent. We are proud to report that our quarterly turnover has been at the lowest level since fiscal 2016 for the third consecutive quarter, despite the robust labor market. To further enhance store productivity, we are also kicking off the second phase of our store staffing optimization in the second quarter. As we look to create flexibility in our staffing model, we are implementing the cloud based data driven store staffing and scheduling system to drive further staffing efficiency by more accurately rebalancing the level of technical skills in each store, ensuring our stores are staffed with technicians without the appropriate skill level for the services required. To complement this initiative, we will also launch a mobile app allowing our teammates to easily pick up shifts and give them the option to increase their hours and earnings. To conclude, I am very proud of what we've accomplished as an organization since I joined Monroe almost two years ago. I would like to thank our customers and shareholders for their continued support and our teammates for their exceptional work and commitment. I look forward to building upon our strong business momentum. With that, I'll turn the call over to Brian who will provide additional detail on our first quarter financial performance and fiscal 2020 outlook.